The Post-14 Mathematics Inquiry

On 23 July, 2002, the Government announced that there would be an Inquiry
into post-14 mathematics education. Principal of Queen Mary, University of
London, Professor Adrian Smith FRS was appointed chair of the Inquiry on
31 October by Minister of State for Lifelong Learning and Higher Education,
Margaret Hodge, and the Minister of State for School Standards, David
Milliband.^

The Inquiry was established in response to a recommendation in Sir Gareth
Roberts' report
SET
for success. The Government's initial response to this report was
included in the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Paul Boateng's, report
Investing
in Innovation.^

The aim of the Inquiry will be to make recommendations to ensure that the
United Kingdom has a strong supply of young people with good mathematical
knowledge and skills that meet the wide-ranging needs of employers and further
and higher education. The Inquiry is expected to make recommendations on
changes to the curriculum, qualifications and pedagogy for those aged 14
and over in schools, colleges and higher educational institutions, to enable
students to acquire mathematical knowledge and skills necessary to meet the
requirements of employers and further and higher education.^

On the 28 January, Professor Adrian Smith announced the members of the
Inquiry's Steering Group, who will be working
with him on this challenging and important Inquiry.

To ensure that the Inquiry is well informed and able to draw on the views,
ideas and experiences of a wide range of interests, over
200 organisations have already been contacted
and invited to give written evidence to the Inquiry. In giving some context
to their response Professor Adrian Smith included a list of
key questions that he believes the Inquiry should
consider. These questions are in no way intended to be an exhaustive list
and the letter of invitation to submit a response stressed that contributors
should feel free to raise and address whatever issues they felt to be important.

The Inquiry website originally enabled anyone to contribute to the Inquiry.

Issues identified by contributors were incorporated into our
key areas data-base. and cross-referenced. This
information was then summarised for the Steering
Group and used to inform our evidence base and emerging findings.